Bulgaria – a land kissed by the gods, caressed by the magical sound of the music of Orpheus. A land, seeped in the blood of heroes, known and unknown, a land where the fragrant Bulgarian rose blooms. The words belong to Lyubomir Angelov and Ivaylo Kirov, the people behind the “I love Bulgaria” National Movement initiative.

“The two of us have been friends since school and we are both into photography. We have been travelling around the country for 15 years and discover new and interesting places all the time. There are many people doing just that – travelling around and taking pictures with their phones or digital cameras. But at the end of the day these photographs somehow fall through the cracks. Our idea was to collect all of these beautiful nooks and corners in one album as a memento for all travelers.”

That was how the idea to compile an album of sticker-photographs was born. The album is on sale at over 100 tourist sites in the country with more constantly being added to the list. It is an open initiative to which other, lesser known sites can be added.

“We have been working in close cooperation with a great many museums in Bulgaria. We launched the initiative together with them and have kept in contact. But interest has been growing and we are constantly being contacted by other tourist sites, information centres and museums who would like to join us,” Lyubomir explains.

Bulgarians have been traveling to countries near and far more and more often in recent years. But do they know and appreciate what they have here, the beauty of Bulgaria? Doesn’t that push their own country to the background?

“No, definitely not,” Lyubomir Angelov says. “I am happy to say that when I am travelling I see a great many people going to different tourist sites in Bulgaria. If we want them to continue to exist, public interest in them must be maintained, there must be people going to see them. And I think people are well and truly interested. Young people travel a lot around the country – they hitchhike, take a train or travel by some other means. I think they do love Bulgaria.”

In recent years we have been witnessing a surge of interest in our Bulgarian roots coming mostly from young people. The Ministry of Tourism has also been taking steps to promote interest in domestic tourism.

“Perhaps they are on the right track – supporting sites, promoting them, creating an infrastructure, providing easy access to information about the places people visit - with the Internet that is now much easier and faster. That is the whole idea of “I love Bulgaria” – to popularize different sites and promote domestic tourism, to help museums and other tourist sites we work with which invest a great deal of effort into keeping history alive,” Lyubomir Angelov says.

He adds that 35-65 percent of the price of the sticker-photographs goes to charity – for the development of the tourist sites on the photograph. The stickers are to on sale at emblematic sites like the Shipka monument, the Valley of Roses, Tsarevets fortress in Veliko Turnovo etc., but also in places less known:

“One of these lesser known sites is the Caleto archaeological complex in Mezdra, dated to the copper-stone age. Another place that is off the beaten track is the Vassil and Atanas Atanasov museum collection in Lovech. It opened doors in 2008 and was named after Ass. Prof. Vassil Atanasov who donated all of the minerals he had collected over 40 years. We hope “I love Bulgaria” will also popularize the wonderful Chudomir Museum in Kazanluk, which preserves, studies and popularizes the work of the renowned Bulgarian writer, artist and prominent public figure Chudomir; the building itself is an architectural monument of culture.”

English version: Milena Daynova